The present invention relates generally to form factor cards, and more particularly, to a form factor card having a status indicator.
With the proliferation of portable electronic devices, such as digital cameras, personal digital assistants, and notebook computers, the use of form factor cards adapted for use with these devices is steadily increasing. The term xe2x80x9cform factor cardxe2x80x9d is a general term often used to describe a memory card, such as a SONY memory stick or CompactFlash card, but also applies to cards that perform other functions, including I/O cards such as serial cards, Ethernet cards, fax/modem cards, wireless pagers, and multimedia cards.
An unfortunate characteristic of form factor cards, particularly memory cards, is their tendency to operate at relatively slow speeds. Furthermore, form factor cards do not have a means to indicate when the cards are being accessed by a host electronic device. The combination of slow operating speed and no indicating means can lead to potential problems. A user of an electronic device employing a form factor card, for instance, might inadvertently remove the card from the host device before the host device has completed accessing the card resulting in loss of data or worse. Prematurely removing a memory card from a digital camera before the camera has completed writing or reading data from the card, for example, can corrupt the file being written or may cause an application to xe2x80x9changxe2x80x9d when reading the file.
Users of electronic devices employing form factor cards would benefit from a form factor card able to communicate to the user various statuses of the card such as when it is being accessed, failure modes, and other card functions.
The present invention provides a form factor card compatible for use with a host electronic device that is capable of communicating a status of the form factor card to a user of the host electronic device. The form factor card comprises an adapter region for mechanically and electrically interfacing the card with the host electronic device, an on-card electronic device for performing a task for the host electronic device, an on-card intelligent controller, and an indicator in communication with the on-card intelligent controller to communicate an operational status of the form factor card.